The First of Them
by PhantomWorks- Stories division
Summary: Different cause for the 'infected'. What if Marlene didn't just have one kid with a big secret? What if she had 6? Mostly based on the story up to getting the car, with my own plot tweaks then complete divergence from game plot then. includes possible Dani/Ellie depending on reader's choice. I own nothing recognisable in this story.
1. Chapter 1 the cargo

**So even a few weeks ago I would not have seen this coming. I have, in the past been freaked out by zombies, scrap I was paranoid to the extreme after reading the Wikipedia article for 'Dead Set', but A I am trying to improve on that sort of thing, and B I am a games design student currently considering focusing on story and the last of us is said to be one of if not the best game out there storytelling wise s I sucked it in and started watching TheMediaCows' walkthrough of the last of us remastered and I came up with this idea watching the early part of the walkthrough. This features the ultimate Phantom 1.0 version of Danny and the dark Phantom. In this story the dark Phantom has the power to control weaker ghosts and turn them into rampaging beasts that slowly mutate into monsters. He set a trap for Danny, trapping him in his thermos with Dani before stealing the Phantom serum. He then used an aerosolized version to turn humans and ghosts into Halfas without them recognising. He also controls the alpha of the main dragon nest in the Antarctic but that is currently unimportant but anyway he then produced a satellite array to project his power across the earth, after this the story is very similar to the pre Ellie storyline of the game but of course there are a few more members of the gang waiting for Joel and Tess than just Ellie.**

**Also I have been inspired to incorporate the sort of split personality but within the head discussions when both personas are more or less the same seen in the story wizards in Phantom city, if you want to know why I am at all interested in that show my little half sister and older step brother used to have a Disney channel addiction, so that will be featured but not in the same way, a lot of the explanations will come in the story. I have no qualms against homosexuals so vote if you want Dani and Ellie as a pairing, I have no plans for Dani and the DLC left behind shows Ellie as either a homosexual or bisexual as she was seen reading male pornography in the truck leaving Lincoln, either way if you guys want we can have Dani and Ellie (as a female clone of a boy it wouldn't be too odd for Dani to be homosexual). **

**Either way.**

**By the way the title is to reference that in this the 'infected' are controlled PS Halfas and Danny was the first of them.**

_**Chapter 1 the cargo.**_

Marlene, wounded leader of the paramilitary group, the fireflies, fell through the door of the room, followed by the 2 smugglers Joel and Tess. Seeing her friend injured Ellie charged at the 2 people she assumed had harmed her.

"What the F*** did you do to her!" she yelled.

"Nothing." Marlene soothed. "Ellie these are the people who are goanna get you guys to the others."

"Wait, what!?" Joel exclaimed, not comfortable to be around a little kid, she would remind him of Sarah too much.

"Wait, you guys?" Tess interjected.

A cough sounded and the smugglers turned to see 2 16 year olds, 2 15 year olds and a 12 year old.

One of the 16 year olds, a girl, seemed to be quite timid, looking down at the floor. She had on jeans and a red t-Shirt she had red hair. The other 16 year old was a boy, black hair and blue eyes. He was wearing damaged brown cargo pants, a white stained t-shirt and a long coat. Bothe 15 year olds, a blond girl and brunette boy, had on combat gear. The 12 year old was a girl in red cargo shorts and a blue hoodie who bore an uncanny resemblance to the eldest boy. Ellie, the girl that attacked them had dirty red hair and we re too. She moved over to stand near the 12 year old.

"Meet Danny, Cat, Dave, Mindy, Ellie and Danielle. They will be your cargo." Marlene said. "You need too get them to the capitol building. A team off fireflies will take it from there."

"Okay." Tess said.

"No way!" Joel exclaimed angrily. The 2 adults glared at him.

"Joel it'll be to the capitol building that's it. You heard her we get twice our stock. We need those guns." Tess argued. Joel sighed.

"Fine. You two go and confirm the merchandise. I'll get them back to the apartment." He mumbled, unhappy.

"Great, a nice walk." Danny said, fake happiness oozing from his words.

* * *

><p>"So this is what you do?" Ellie asked. "You smuggle things?"<p>

"Yes." Joel said. They had been walking along for a while now. It seemed that only the 2 Danny's (Danny and Dani) were savvy of the outside world and even Dani got curious.

"Like illegal things?" Dani asked.

"On occasion yes." Joel responded, irritated.

"Ever smuggle a group of kids before?" Dave asked.

"No this is a first."

"Cool it with the questions guys. I don't think Joel has been around people so... innocently curious for some time now." Danny interjected.

"Thanks' kid." Joel muttered. "We're here anyway."

* * *

><p><strong>Danny's POV<strong>

"So, make yourselves comfortable. There are some books over there." Joel trailed off, I want to keep an eye on him, there is something he's hiding from us.

"_So now what?"_ Fenton said in my head, huh rhymes.

"_Now we get to the outside of the city and try to convince the fireflies of our plan." _Phantom replied.

"_And if they refuse or are dead?"_

"_We improvise."_

.: Phantom do you copy, repeat do you copy. Over :. Skyfire said to me telepathically.

.: Ha-ha Skyfire. Yes I am paying attention to you. How are things up in the archipelago? :. I replied sarcastically.

.: There is a tension in the air, something's coming, soon. Something big. The elders are preparing and the hatchlings are unbearable. :.

.; And the scouts? :.

.:We have the coordinates. I'm uploading them to C.H.U.C.K as we speak. :.

.: Great. See you in a few weeks. :.

.: over and out. :.

With our little conversation finished the woman, Tess, came and told Joel.

"I've seen the goods, it's a lot."

"Let's get this over with." Joel said. And like that our journey began.

* * *

><p><strong>And so how was that. I'm trying to keep Danny's plans hidden from you as much as the characters. Sans Skyfire and the archipelago.<strong>

**Anyway review to suggest Dani and Ellie's relationship (Close friends, pseudo sisters or young lovers. Next time we will see their escape from the city and the confrontation with the soldiers.**

**BTW in this corpses do turn but it takes days or even weeks to do so. Danny will explain later. Peace out.**


	2. Chapter 2 setting off

**And we are back with chapter 2. This chapter leads up to the confrontation between the smugglers and the soldiers.**

_**Chapter 2 setting off**_

Satisfied that they would be getting their money Joel walked over to the shelving unit hiding the tunnel they needed.

"We need to be real F***ing quiet, if we're found after curfew we might as well be dead." He said. He sent a sharp glare at the kids.

"Got it." Danny smirked.

* * *

><p>"So why are the fireflies so interested in you?" Tess asked. They were still walking through the tunnel.<p>

"Cat and Ellie are the important ones." Dave said.

"We found them and took it upon ourselves to protect them." Mindy said.

"I'm with Danny and he wants to talk with them." Dani explained.

"But why are Cat and Ellie so important? They're like 12 years old." Tess exclaimed. Joel winced; Sarah was 12 when he lost her.

"Cat and Danny are 16, I'm 14." Ellie corrected.

"Me and Mindy are 15." Dave added.

"I'm 12."Dani supplied semi-helpfully.

Joel sighed. These kids were odd, at times they acted curious like little kids but other times they were like he or Tess was, quite violent with potty mouths, apart from Danny, the kid always seemed to know what was happening and was always on guard.

"_If she had survived would Sarah be like them?"_ Joel thought to himself.

"So you two are like a security detail?" Tess asked Dave and Mindy. "How does that work?"

"Our parents died on the way to the quarantine zone when we were quite young." Mindy said.

"You learn to fight well when you need to." Dave said.

"Don't I know it." Joel and Danny muttered bitterly. Joel glanced over at the kid. What's the deal with this kid?

* * *

><p>Coming out of the tunnel the 6 teens reacted very differently. Mindy and Dave stiffened and they grabbed their weapons. Dani looked fairly nervous and sad. Cat was in equal mixture awed and scared, Ellie seemed to just be amazed.<p>

"Wow. I've never been outside the quarantine before, it's amazing." She breathed.

"Yeah. Completely f***ing amazing." Danny muttered. Joel looked over at the teen to see a mixture of sorrow and anger. That sort of expression was normally only seen on over 30 year olds, people who knew exactly what they had lost.

They were walking up a waterway.

"This is just a sewer. They flushed the waste out of here." Tess said.

"Yeah well we need to get out of here." Joel said. He gestured to a makeshift tunnel. "Up here."

They walked up the tunnel with Joel at the front and Tess at the back.

When Joel came up to the top Joel was confronted by a soldier.

"Hold it!" he ordered.

"_Oh S***!" _Ellie thought.

* * *

><p><strong>And the next chapter is finished. Next time we learn what I've already said and how a 16 year old Danny can be here 20 years after the outbreak when he only made the Phantom serum, the cause of this, when he was 6. See you then. Also unless people are seriously against it in the review I think I will do DaniEllie. When we actually reach that sort of content I will put the coupling in place on the entry.**


	3. Chapter 3 truths come to light

**And here is where secrets come to light.**

_**Chapter 3 truths come to light**_

Mentally cursing themselves the group of 8 allowed the 2 soldiers to line them up on their knees.

The soldier went up to Tess and scanned her.

"Clean."

Then Joel.

"Clean."

Mindy.

"Clean."

Dave.

"Clean."

Then he came up to Ellie, who was sweating bullets. Before the soldier could scan her she took out her knife and stabbed him. Danny took out the other guy but Joel saw the scanner.

Immediately he pinned Ellie to the wall.

"She set us up! We've been carrying an infected child!" he said.

"Actually you've been carrying 2 and neither have turned despite being bit 3 weeks ago." Mindy said ads Cat and Ellie pulled their sleeves u to reveal scabbed over bite marks.

"How is that possible?" Tess said the age of the injuries was clear. Cat seemed to have retreated into a crouch, she was terrified.

"We don't know." Ellie said. "Me a friend of mine and Cat snuck out of school one day and were attacked by infected, we were bit and we just sat around waiting. My friend turned, we put out her lights but we kept waiting, we waited for days and nothing happened, no ring of light, no increased aggression, no nothing." Joel scanned Dani and Danny.

"What about you 2? You have a higher energy signature than any infected I've ever seen." Danny sighed

"How old are you?"

"48."

"Huh well I should be 36. She should be about 20." Danny admitted.

"What?"

"Ever heard of Danny Phantom?"

"Heck yeah, the guys some kind of super hero from Illinois, I hear that those that believe he is still around somewhere have formed a sort of church."

"Yeah well he is me."

"What!" Joel and Tess yelled at once. The kids just looked between them.

"Back in 02 when I was 5 I was told, well you remember phantoms disease?" Danny asked.

"Yeah." Joel replied.

"Wait, what's phantoms disease?" Ellie asked, curious.

"A horrible disease that invaded its victims and slowly killed them one cell at a time, paralyzes you eventually after months, if not years of torment, and then kills you. Even then it is not happy until you are nought but a skeleton." Joel explained.

"Yeah well I was patient zero for that." Danny said. "But I was a serious child genius and I created a very powerful serum called the Phantom serum, something that was stolen and used to infect the entire planet, this is part of what caused this whole mess."

"What!?" Joel exclaimed.

"Let me finish." Danny explained. "With my Powers I became Danny Phantom. I, indeed we all became an immortal half ghost creature called a Halfa. Anyway 10 years later my enemy Vlad Plasmius created Dani as an attempt to make his own me. Eventually she accepted me as her dad and we started working together."

"A bit later we learnt of a big ghost signature outside Boston." Dani added.

"It was a trap; we were flanked by an army of skeleton ghost and a massive group of ghost hunters. We were forced together when a stray shot caught the shoulder strap holding my Fenton thermos, the device I used to capture ghosts, and it switched to chameleon mode and captured us. After this it vanished into the building. The device was designed to slow time for its occupants to a year a second. 20 seconds later the lid was torn off and we were spat out. We found ourselves out here not to far away and we used one of these tunnels to sneak into the city where we started investigating. Almost immediately I recognised that the 'infection' was related to the Phantom serum. This led me to deduce that the whole ghost army thing was a trap by one of my enemies that knew about it. More investigation told me who it actually was."

"You know who's responsible for all this horror all these 20 years?" Joel asked.

"The Dark Phantom." Danny said. Ellie and Cat shivered.

"Sounds dangerous." Ellie said.

"He is." Danny said sudden hatred infused into his tone. "He is the embodiment of darkness, fear and evil. Literally when someone dies violently their ghost releases dark energy with ecto energy and over the years, particularly during the two world wars."

"World wars?" Ellie said. Danny looked at the 4 kids he and Dani had teamed up with. He sighed and looked down.

"No one even cared about telling you these things." He muttered. Tess and Joel were shocked to. "Well anyway eventually that energy became an incredibly powerful ghost. One of his Powers is that he can overwhelm weaker ghosts. They are transformed into brutal monsters. I believe you guys call them 'bloaters'."

"But why does it take so long?" Tess asked.

"Because they are fighting it, heck you guys are fighting it." Danny said.

"What?" Joel asked.

"Halfas like us; we have a sort of split personality thing." Danny explained. "Well it's not like you have 2 people in your head but your ghost half is personified but you are essentially the same person inside. Before you turn you ghost self is trying to prevent you from transforming as much as possible. Once you can't fight anymore and you transform you work together to weaken the creature they have become. We will talk more on the move, the solders are coming."

With that they started running into the undergrowth.

"How large is this guys range?" Joel asked.

"Not as far as this, he has a satellite array in orbit transmitting his Powers across the globe, we take them out he will permanently loose control of all the infected."

"What about dragons?" Ellie said. "Marlene mentioned dragon attacks in the past."

"Dragons aren't real." Joel said.

"Actually they are. When I was 3, all the way back in 2000, I hatched and raised a dragon called a night fury. They live up in the former barbaric archipelago; it's to cold for anyone to investigate. All the other dragons live in a nest under Antarctica I guess Dan brought in a new alpha down there. Skyfire, my night fury ally is the alpha of the night furies and has been holed up at the nest for the last 20 years, he was ecstatic to hear from me, telepathically speaking." Danny added.

"Wait I can hear more soldiers."

* * *

><p>After a high threat area the gang wound up underground, at which point Joel, Tess, Danny and Dani discovered something disheartening, no one was teaching these kids to swim, half their group were stuck against water.<p>

"So why doesn't this dark Phantom just take control of the infected?" Joel asked.

"He is using you as a sick form of entertainment. That's why we're keeping a low profile, he can't know we're back till I can spring my plan." Danny spat before he paused. "Wait."

"I know this place." Dani said.

"This is where we woke up." Danny said. He walked over to a pile of rebar. He pulled out a crushed high tech thermos. "Here's our old prison." He muttered. Then he saw something. "Oh yes!" he exclaimed pulling out a silver briefcase. He pulled it apart and then reassembled it as a high tech gun before a shoulder strap was wrapped round him.** (Think Kevin's gun from the ultimate enemy from Ben 10 ultimate alien.)** "I love this gun, it's a work of art." He muttered. "Let's move out."

* * *

><p><strong>And that's a wrap. And if anyone in the homosexual community is insulted by my suggestion in chapter 1 that Ellie might be bisexual, I just feel that the initial game does suggest that she could have an interest in boys while the left behind DLC confirms that she is interested in at least one girl so it is just a suggestion, I mean no offence. Also if you were unaware me using the design of Kevin's gun from Ben 10 is not the only connection it would have if this was actually made as, as fans May know, Ellie's voice actress is also the voice of Ben 10 supporting character Gwen Tennyson.<strong>

**Next chapter we will see a battle between an armed Joel, Tess and Danny and the infected. See you then.**


End file.
